washington and george washington carver did around the tush -- turn of the century. look how far we came from emancipation to civil rights with no resources, and look at all the resources that we have today, the proud, rich legacy of african-american scientists and educators and leaders. and there's no reason we can't commit to attack this problem of dropout rates in our community and commit to make sure ourselves -- and i want to make sure, this is ron kirk speaking, this is not the obama administration, this is not arne duncan. as a community i think it's time for us to say to ourselves in the next 20 years, in the next 30 years, nine out of ten african-american boys and girls are going to graduate high school, and they're going to have experience, they're going to have the right to go to college, or they're going to have the skills to get a job. [applause] now, i'm not giving anybody else a pass, but we have to accept this challenge as a community to do that. and that means you're going to have to get up and go ahead and talk to some of these kids instead of shaki